Energy bending
by shelled27
Summary: How does the story change if Aang has to learn energy bending from a fifth master instead of the lion turtle? The life of an earth kingdom boy orphaned by a fire nation attack at thirteen, and how he grows to become the avatar's energy bending master. M for some gory detail and whatever might happen later.
1. Chapter 1

Holy shit! You actually clicked on this one? Thanks, I guess.

This is not only my very first fanfiction, but my first time sharing anything I've written. So be savage with your critiques, tear me to pieces.

Now this might take a while for Azula, or even any of the Gaang to show up in a significant way. I mean, you can't just learn energy bending overnight, like some people can. (e.g. Aang) But hopefully I make it interesting enough, or you all have the patience to stick with me.

I DON'T own Avatar: The Last Air Bender. I wouldn't be writing this if I did. I'd be out of college and have our new favorite orphan be one of the heroes.

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Cheng's face pressed against the cold, damp earth in front of him. Eyes screwed shut as hard as he could hold them to keep the tears from falling out and stinging his already soaking and rubbed raw cheeks.

He could hear muffled shouts through the earth above him. Mixed in were grunts of effort, and the roar of flame spewing from the fists of the attackers.

It all started so quickly, and it was so unexpected. As fearful children chased down the last soldiers to leave, they were all assured that the village was of no significance. There was no chance it would be attacked.

Yet the giant smoke belchers of the fire nation landed on the shores of Dingcun. There were no watchful eyes on the horizon, there was no indication, the afternoon was peaceful one moment, and then chaotic the next.

Cheng had spent the day in the trees bordering the village, playing with the children his age. When his mother called him for lunch, and that's when it happened.

A frantic knock came to the door. Without waiting for it to open, someone shouted "fire nation!" His father went to the window, expecting to see a prankster running away, but a moment later Cheng was flung over his shoulder like a ragdoll and nearly tossed into the bedroom. His mother pounded a hole into the ground, and his father wordlessly dumped him in before making for the front door again.

"Wait here, dear" she held Chengs face in her hands, starring him in his eyes with tears welling up in her own. "Wait here, and don't come out unless someone from the village comes for you. Ok?"

Cheng nodded shakily with tears already falling.

His mother stood and bent the earth back into place above him, Leaving him in pitch black.

They were both strong, the best earth benders in the village, he kept telling himself. But that didn't mean much when there were only four benders, and one of them was buried away, hiding in a hole. Regardless, every time a tear dropped he would repeat the fact to himself. But in the back of his mind he would again say, a ship full of soldiers… versus villagers and three earth benders, and would begin crying all over again.

It felt like hours later that he realized everything was silent. He waited still, for maybe an hour after. Expecting some hand to burst through the ground, maybe for someone to shout his name. But when nothing came he steeled himself and crouched into the stance his father taught him in the backyard. Crouched slightly, so that you were closer to the ground, harder to knock over. Hand by your hips, every muscle tense until you were ready to bend. Cheng punched upward with a grunt and the ground above popped away like a cork from a bottle. Then, as if lifting something heavy over his head, he raised the ground beneath himself until he was on level ground.

His knees hit the ground without him feeling. He didn't resist the tears upon seeing the husk of his home, the ashes of his parents bed blew into his face when he turned, looking for something, anything. Where his parents bed was, he saw a body sitting atop a pile of ash. Burned and unrecognizable. He turned away and curled into himself on the only patch of unburnt ground he could see.

After a time, the sun became too searing for him to stay, so he stood, careful not to look at the bed.

He remembered the basic training he had received along with other villagers, when the soldiers were still in the village. Step one was to look for survivors, step two was to gather supplies, and step three was to make it to the next village and report what had happened. He felt that wasn't enough at the time. What do you do in between steps? What if someone is alive but hurt, and can't make it to the next village? What if you don't know where the next village is? What is there aren't any supplies to gather? All of his questions were answered in a way that satisfied him at the time, but now left his throat clenched in panic.

He searched until near dusk, calling out every name he could remember though his closing throat. His dead grandmother, the neighbor boy that he hated, the old man he occasionally stole sweets from, his mother's name was shouted the most. But there was no one except him. The village was silent.

It took him a moment to accept the fact that he might be alone, so he followed on to step two. He found a hefty leather bag, covered in soot so he knew it had been scorched, but it was intact. He felt his nerves on end as he walked through the village, he jumped at every shadow, and started at every noise caused by the wind. So he decided his first destination would be the blacksmiths home, remember some of the tools that were hung on the walls.

He stopped at the building he was looking for. It was the only stone building in the village, so it was most intact. But that only meant two walls had fallen instead of three or four. He stepped in gingerly, the doorway leaving a black mark on his hand, and made his way towards the back wall. He could almost see it when he recalled the tools hung up on the back wall room. There were knives, hammers, horse shoes and hoes, even a crudely made sword as this was a fishing not a fighting village. All were lying on the floor now, there supports all reduced to ash.

Cheng made his way closer to the pile to sift through the ashes for a knife, or even a hammer he could carry. As soon as his hand touched something in the pile he noticed a… thing, lying half underneath the pile.

A scorched hammer led to a mangled hand, to a bone seared arm, up to a blackened shoulder and head. The lips were burned away revealing a set of scowling teeth. The skin down his chest was just as burned as the rest of him, but there were cracks that revealed the wet and red underneath that proved this thing was alive once.

His breath caught, and he scrambled back on all fours, nearly crashing into the wall. He sat on the floor outside, breathing heavily until he calmed down enough to see what he had managed to bring out of the pile of ash and metal. A dagger in a scorched wooden sheath. When he opened it he found a polished and very sharp blade, with some letters crudely dotted into the metal. "Never give up without a fight" He muttered to himself. A hard gulp followed after, and his knuckles turned white around the hilt of the knife.

It was much easier to search the village once he knew what not to look at. Before sunset he had a bag of odds and ends, and food and water that would last him for a while as he walked down the only path leading out of Dingcun.

Given it was nearing dark, he decided to stay the night. Near the village, but away from all the carnage. He chose the only building that was untouched, a fisherman's shack that sat at the end of the only dock. He spent the night wrapped in fishing nets and laying curled on top of a tangle of rope.

It was easy to forget himself when he woke up in the morning. For a moment the village was back to normal, quiet save for the waves. But then he saw the scorched bag in the corner and snapped out of his drowsy fantasy.

He snatched up the knife from where it had fallen and rushed out of the shack before he could start crying again. It wasn't long before all he could see of his village was a black pillar of smoke in the sky.


	2. Chapter 2

Cheng had been sitting in the dusty alley for a couple of hours, and it was starting to get frustrating. His mark was a new merchant to the village of Liqiang, and that meant he wouldn't be guarded around Cheng, who had become infamous in the village. But he was so ridiculously careful with his cabbages that it almost wasn't worth it. Not that he was vigilant of his surroundings, no, he was too focused on his wares for that.

Cheng had marked him the day before, and was sure to be at the alley early. When the merchant finally arrived, he very carefully removed the cloth from the near perfect pyramid sat atop his cart, then reoriented every single one so that the greenest leaf faced the oncoming crowd. Then he gingerly wiped every single one with a wet cloth, and would do it again every time a passerby kicked up a cloud of dust. In between his constant fussing over his cabbages, he found time to shout out his wares, or ware, because he _only_ sold cabbages.

So while waiting for the man to settle down, Cheng sat in the empty alley across from the man, pretending to focus on the rocks spinning this way and that in between his palms. Cheng almost didn't notice the man pull out his lunch, but he had gone oddly silent for a moment and when Cheng looked up he was sitting down next to his cart instead of constantly pacing around it. The stone clacked together when he closed his hands around them and crushed them into dust. He rubbed his palms together to get rid of any sweat and stood.

It was tempting to steal the lunch instead once he saw what it was. The rice, meat, and fried cabbage was still steaming somehow, and it made his mouth water at the thought of a hot meal. But he stopped the train of thought immediately. He had a plan, and he would stick to it.

The cabbage at the bottom of the pyramid, on the corner farthest from the merchant. He hoped that removing the one would topple the rest, and if he timed it right then the merchants mouth would be full just as the cabbages fell. Any addition to chaos following his grabbing the cabbage would be helpful.

Cheng took a deep breath when he saw the man pick up his chop sticks. He darted towards the cart as soon as the bite was in his mouth and picked the cabbage out of the pyramid. It didn't fall, but the reaction of the man as he tried to swallow his bite was good enough.

Cheng was already a block away when he heard the man shout "Stop! That thief took my cabbage!"

He laughed lightly as he ran and glanced back at the man. The crowd that gathered around him were now looking around frantically.

But as he was watching, two earth kingdom soldiers stepped out from a building he had just passed. In unison they slammed a foot into the ground and uppercut the air. He could hear stone crumbling and grinding in the direction he was running and knew what happened before he even looked. A wall had been built in front of him.

He turned to focus on the obstacle in front of him. With a practiced flourish, he punched into the air with a grunt mid-run, and a perfectly round hole fell from the wall, just big enough for him to leap through. He jumped through the hole and caught a glimpse of the soldiers behind him. But when his foot landed on the other side of the wall, it stuck. A stone had popped up out of the ground, exactly where his foot landed and tripped him. He caught himself on his shoulder as his foot was flung up behind him by a pillar rising from the same patch of ground and slid on his back for a distance.

When Cheng managed to gather himself, he saw a third man standing above him. With a stomp of his foot, Cheng was risen into the air by an earth prison, held about his shoulders and completely off the ground.

The man was an imposing sight, standing in front of Cheng. He was three times as wide as the boy, dressed up in the uniform of an army general. His black hair was greased and tied into a tight knot behind his head. A short, sharp goatee covered his chin. He had the stern face of command that immediately stopped any struggle that Cheng had in himself.

He stared silently for a moment with a furrowed brow before a grin crept onto his face.

"That was impressive, kid. But we're going to have to take that back." The cabbage was trapped in Cheng's hand within the prison, but they both knew what the man meant. He punched a hand into the stone and pulled it back out with the cabbage, slightly bruised, but still edible. He passed it off to one of the soldiers standing shame faced behind him.

Despite who the compliment was coming from, Cheng felt himself grin. "If it was that impressive I'd like to be paid for the show. Price is one cabbage"

He hummed "Don't push your luck. Be glad I'm not punishing you" Then he went silent and stared again. Cheng had trouble keeping eye contact, so he glanced around and noticed the crowd forming. He looked down and blushed in shame. Suddenly the man stomped a foot and the prison fell away, dropping Cheng to his knees. "I'll do you one better."

Cheng looked up at him questioningly.

"We're stationed here for the night, I have nothing better to do, and you look hungry. Come have lunch with me." Before Cheng could even answer, the man picked him up by the shoulders and all but dropped him on his feet. "I'm General Yiban." He looked at Cheng expectantly.

He looked down at the ground again. Orphans were more often than not ignored. It had been weeks since he'd heard his name. He was reluctant to tell this mountain of a man what it was, if only for an instant. But he _had_ just let him off after stealing, despite the hysterical shouts for justice coming from the merchant he'd just stolen from. "Cheng… My name is Cheng."

"No last name." it wasn't a question, but Cheng nodded anyway. "Where are you from? You don't look like you're from Liqiang"

He was suddenly eager to end the longest conversation he'd had in some time. But a hot meal stayed his foot.

"I'm from a fishing village…" He paused for a moment, surprised that he had to think to remember the name of his home. It was sad to think that the only survivor almost forgot the name Dingcun. "I was from Dingcun… before it was attacked."

The generals mouth fell into a straight line. "And how old are you?"

"I'm fourteen."

"I'm sorry to hear that... know that this war takes from everyone, you're not alone." Seemingly making the decision that he had said enough, the general nodded curtly and prompted the soldiers at his sides to follow. Giving no indication to Cheng that he wanted him to do the same but a glance back when he had made it a distance away.

Cheng watched the man make his way about the village for some time. He stopped occasionally to buy something and handed whatever he bought off to one the soldiers to carry. Or if not to buy something, then he stopped just to converse with the villagers lounging in chairs in front of their homes, or tending to their wares at a stall or in a store. He gave of a much different atmosphere around the people than when he had talked to Cheng before. The man talking about the weather with a toothy smile in front of him gave the impression of a jovial neighbor, rather than an army general like he had before.

Giving up on trying to decipher the man, Cheng took to watching around him. They were walking through a section of the village that he must not have explored yet. Because, while all the buildings looked the same as the rest of the earthen huts, there were smaller tents interspersed between them. It took him a moment to notice that, instead of the odd patriotic citizen, every single tent and hut had the earth kingdom symbol either punched into the stone above the doorway, or hung above the tent flap in a golden cloth.

Cheng felt himself jerked to the side abruptly by a large hand. He hadn't noticed that the general took a left while he went straight, one of the soldiers roughly corrected his direction. It was at a hut twice the size of all those surrounding it that they stopped walking.

The general stooped and entered the shack, and the two soldiers stationed themselves on either side of the entrance. When Cheng stood stationary, the soldier on his right beckoned him in, looking at him as if he were doing something funny.

The inside of the shack was fairly cozy, all things considered. The biggest fixture of the room was a massive stone desk fixed on the right. It was littered with papers, the stack on the right hand side as tall as the generals' head when he was seated, and the left hand side only as tall as his fist. Lanterns and candles were hung in every corner of the room, though all were turned off to let the daylight illuminate the room. A wash basin and sleeping cot were placed in the far left corner of the room, and a couple of chairs were placed around a small stone table to Chengs left. Given nothing else to do, Cheng glanced again at the general, and when nothing came of that he studied the papers on the desk more closely. There were half written letters, unfilled forms, and maps with tiny marking on them littered all over the place, including the floor. Judging by the map the troop had been traveling for a long time. All the way from Ba-sing-se, looping all three segments of the continent along the coast, and then to the Liqiang at the center of the continent from the south coast.

After a considerable amount of time watching the general, he was motioned to sit at the small table as the food was brought in. It was a thick and hearty stew with a large chunk of hard bread to dip into it. Cheng noted that the utensils and containers were made of clean stone before he started. All else was forgotten as they ate. Both too absorbed in the food to discuss whatever it might have been that he was brought to discuss.

It wasn't until both plates were clean, and Cheng was getting ready to excuse himself that the general spoke again. "I need to have a word with you before you decide if you want to leave." The general swept the table clean, knocking everything into a hole that had opened up in the ground, and then closed said hole over the stone utensils.

This made Cheng stomach jump, he thought he had gotten off free. He immediately jumped into a well-practiced apology. "I know stealing is wrong, and I know how bad of a person I must have been to steal another livelihood from them. I promise it will never happen again if you let me go just this once. I'll even go an apologize to the merchant I stole from.

The general broke into a smile, and Cheng felt cold relief wash over him. For some reason the idea of disappointing this man made him feel terrible inside, especially after being treated to a meal by him. "Shut up, kid. I know why you stole, and I know nothing I say will stop you from doing it again." he rubbed his hand over his hair, suddenly looking a bit worried. "No, i have something more important to talk about with you."

He leaned back in his chair and took a long breath with his arms crossed before speaking again. "You said you were from Dingcun?"

Cheng stiffened in his chair slightly. "Yes... Why?... Sir" He added, not knowing how to address the question.

"Before I say what I will, I want you to remember something. We are in the center of an army of men, all stronger than you, of which am the commander. So you must restrain yourself. Do you understand?" The general leveled Cheng with a look that left no room for argument.

Cheng didn't like the direction that the general was taking. So Cheng, looking for an out, grinned. "I wouldn't say they're stronger than me. It did take an army general to stop me from stealing a cabbage."

There was a hint of a smile on his face, but the general fought to hold his mouth in a straight line when he spoke again. "This is serious, Cheng"

"Right, sorry. I'll listen, and keep what you said in mind."

The general took a deep breath and spoke. "I am responsible for the attack on Dingcun."


	3. Chapter 3

I didn't have the most fun writing this chapter, but tell me what you think.

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The general paused to gauge my reaction, and when I gave none, he continued "We were a days march away when our scouts came running back to us with news that your village had been destroyed."

"How does that make it your fault? You were on your way to protect it."

He looked me in the eye for a moment and he took a deep breath. "We knew we had an informant in our ranks. And once we pinned down who it was we decided to feed false information to him. That I would be in dingcun with a small patrol group at a certain time. But he must have been fed the wrong date, or there were multiple spies that we didn't manage to catch. They were supposed to attack your village weeks after our arrival, in order to catch me off gaurd."

I felt a frown spread on my face, and just as I was about to yell at him for staging an attack at my village, he spoke over me.

"I assure you, we planned for no harm to come to you or any of the villagers. We had nearly five hundred men behind us on our march there. And they were expecting ten men, including me." He looked down at the table in front of him with a despondent look on his face "I can't express how sorry I am that I wasn't able to make it on time. That we used your village to stage something so risky. That we couldn't protect anyone like we were all meant to do. It is one of my greatest shames and failures."

I clenched and unclenched my fists in my lap for a moment.

He wasn't responsible. He was putting himself in as much risk as he was the village, he was the target after all. Him not being there must have been why all of the fire nation soldiers left so soon after they razed the village.

I tried telling myself that, but the anger and the hurt from that day came welling back up into my throat. Suddenly I could smell the charred blacksmith all over again and it was sickening. The meal that I just had was trying to crawl out of my stomach.

But when I looked up and saw the fear and worry in the generals eyes, I swallowed hard and it all seemed to go away.

"I... understand. You had the nation's best interest at heart. I don't mean to say I'm not hurt... but I'm over what happened, for the most part. I'm not willing to tear down all of that progress just so I can get angry again at someone who was barely responsible for it."

"I'm glad to hear that you have been able to make peace with it. But I still feel I have a debt to pay to you... I know I will never be able to give you back what you lost. But I want to propose something to you." His chair disappeared with a loud crunch and he walked swiftly to his desk. After a few seconds of rifling through papers and drawers he snatched a paper out from the clutter. After looking it over for a moment he nodded to himself and turned to me. "Become my student."

I looked between his face and the paper he held out to me in his hand "What?"

"Become my student. I haven't seen much, but from what I have seen I can tell you are a talented young earth bender. Especially if you've taught yourself so far." He leaned over the table and put his hands on either side of the paper in front of me "Dingcun is halfway across the kingdom, on the opposite end of the continent from the capitol. Yet you and I both ended up here two years after the fact. I believe fate has given us both something back. I will provide for you, teach you proper earth bending personaly. You will always have a place to sleep. You may not have a home, as we will both be traveling the kingdom, but you will always have shelter, clothing, food, and a future. You may leave whenever you wish, but you will always be welcome. All you'll have to do is agree with what is written on the paper."

I looked down at the paper again. Did I really want to become this man's student? I said that I didn't blame him for the death of my family, friends, and entire village. But if it weren't for his plan then none of this would have happened.

I mentally shook my head. He wasn't to blame. So many others would kill, or pay fortunes for the opportunity I was getting. I would be stupid to decline it just because I had lost my village, that had happened to hundreds of people.

Before I could change my mind, I forced myself to nod. "Ok, I accept."

I hesitated when I read what was actually on the paper that I was meant to agree with. It was essentially an adoption. I would be allowed to travel with him as a soldier in training, being bred to join the army and immediately be promoted to corporal as soon I turned 18. But the program was only available to the children of high ranking officials. I wanted to agree, but there was a vague feeling itching at the back of my mind, that I would be replacing my father with this man.

I shook that thought from my head immediately, reminding myself of what I was being offered.

When he confirmed again that I agreed, he quickly wrote something on part of the paper that I didn't read and handed it off to one of the two guards stationed outside his door.

"Bring your things. We'll begin once we've left liqiang, to give you a bit of time to get used to the situation"

When I wasn't in the village, I stayed underground at the opposite edge of the village. It hadn't taken me long to punch a home into the ground, already that put me in a better position than most orphans. Now I was going to start training to be a real earthbender.

My stomach churned at the thought of leaving when I kicked my bag out from its hiding place underground.

When I returned after picking up my things, another stone hut was built for me right next to generals.

Even if I was protected by the army now, I reburied my bag out of habit. With a soft stomp I had a hole big enough for my pack in the ground, and then I slid my foot back under me until I was standing straight again to bend a cover for the hole. The guard that led me there chuckled behind me.

Regardless of how eager I was, Yiban refused to start training me until we left the village.

I wasn't nearly as excited once we started though.


	4. Chapter 4

Before any real earth bending instruction began he had me spar against a soldier 'to see and feel what real earth bending is like' the general said. The following day, when i was finally through with being beat and tossed around by a man twice my size, he had me show him my stances, demonstrate to him my movements when I was told to move boulders larger than me, show my dexterity with small stones in my hands, and proves the strength of my stance. Shirtless, barefoot, and from the morning to the afternoon with nearly twenty soldiers watching me.

"How the hell do you even bend with a stance as shit as that?!" I heard the whistle of another pebble, and then felt a sting on my upper back, reminding me to keep it straight and stiff as a rock. Another chorus of chuckles came from behind me when I twitched.

"I taught myself, you asshole!" My legs were trembling at this point. Squatted as I was, with my legs spread and my fists turned palm side up at my waste, and had been doing similar exercises for hours.

He shot another barrage of pebbles that nearly knocked me off balance. Another round of laughter "Did I say you could speak, boy?! Attack!"

I could feel tiny bruises and welts forming where the general had shot me. This was not at all what I was expecting when I accepted his offer to train. Sure my stance was bad, but it was my first day training and he was being ridiculous, at least I thought so. Everybody around me was having fun.

I immediately jumped into the routine the general talked me through. Both heels planted in the ground, lift a pillar as tall as myself with my arms. Break it into three equal segments, without letting it fall. Visualize the stones path as it flew to the target, and attack. I kicked at the air three times, and each time the sound of grinding stone followed. Also each time, my attacks were swatted away like flies by the soldiers I was aiming at.

"Alright, break for lunch" I landed backwards and laid out on the ground, panting and covering my eyes from the sun.

A shadow cast itself over me and I was briefly grateful for the shade. "Come on, Cheng. You're bound to be hungry after something like that." General Yiban gave me his hand, and I took it no matter how much I resented him at the moment.

I very nearly jumped at his neck when he turned around and started walking, but stopped myself. I had signed up for this. "Was that necessary?..."

"Oh yes, very necessary. The stance is everything when earth bending. You're ripping stone from the ground and grinding and breaking it to your will. In order to do that, you yourself must be unbreakable, unyielding. That all comes from the stance."

"...Maybe my stance was bad but I don't think you had to beat me up over it." I wasn't sure I cold take training like that morning everyday until I became a master.

He chuckled and looked at me sideways "have you ever heard of Bumi? The king of omashu."

"Not really, I know he's eccentric, but that's about it" I tried pinching close the cut on my knuckle from when my fist wasn't positioned perfectly above my waste.

"Oh that's an understatement. I was convinced he was insane. But he is a phenomenal earth bender. Possibly the greatest on the planet. And he was my master. Within the first two years of being his student I was given a broken left arm, a twice broken right arm, mashed foot, countless broken ribs and three concussions. Know that I was already a trained bender at that point. For the first day, compared to what I went through, you had it easy." He stopped and pointed to my left "follow the crowd to the cooking fire. Eat small, because we're jumping right back into it after lunch." I groaned but followed the crowd anyway, looking forward to food, having skipped breakfast.

After picking up a plate from the servers around the fire I briefly considered walking back to the generals building, but chose otherwise. The thought of sitting in the same room as him wasn't very appealing after his session of necessary cruelty. And even though I knew it was good spirited, I resented all the soldiers for laughing at my training. So I sat alone under the shade of a nearby tree.

With my hands full, I worked my bending into my steps so that I'd have a solid stone stool and table as I got to the shade. With my back against the tree, I started eating. It wasn't until halfway through my plate that someone noticed me and walked over.

I watched him As he got closer. A knife was strapped onto his belt, and two swords to his back. He wasn't wearing the earth benders uniform so I could tell he was one of the non benders in the army. "Do you mind if I sit with you?" His voice was a bit higher pitched than I expected it to be. Most of the men in the platoon had deep, gravely voices. But his wasn't as coarse as any of the others.

"Uh, sure" in short work I had a stool built in front of me for him, along with an extension of the table.

"You've got to put more effort into bending things as simple as this than all the others" he laughed but continued when I raised my eyebrow at him "just an observation, don't mean to offend"

"Well what did you expect? I'm just a student"

"I know, I was there yesterday... and this morning" he took off his helmet and put it on the table next to his plate. He sported the same look as the general. Though his body was much slimmer, and the hair on his head came back into a ponytail instead of the tight knot that the general kept. "and that makes it all the more impressive. Teaching yourself to bend. The general told me after that spar that you came up with proper bending forms all on your own. Which is impressive, having never been taught before, even if they were rough. I've seen students spend a month on their stature before they get to the big boy stuff. You got it in a morning"

I looked down with a smile and poked at my food "thanks, but I did learn from my father before he died"

"Commoners earth bending and what I saw you do are two very different things. Most children who have never been taught can't do much more than shoot pebbles at your age, but you're breaking the ground easily enough. You're gonna become a great earthbender, kid."

"Thanks... my name is Cheng, by the way."

He reached his hand across the table with a huge smile and I took it with a smile of my own. "Oh I knew your name. But mine is lee. Nice to meet you"

We sat in silence for a moment longer before it clicked and I realized something "why... why would the general tell you about me?"

"Oh! I'm second in command around here" I faulted at that, but before I could think of a way to word the question without offending him, he answered it "how, if I'm a non-bender you ask? By mastering the sword!" He stepped up onto the table in front of me and brandished his swords in as dramatic a pose he could manage.

I couldn't help but burst out laughing "don't you mean swords?"

"Eh, you get the idea" he grinned at me and sat back down. Somehow, he had managed not to nock over his plate on the small table.

"But how? I imagine your swords would go through a lot of wear and tear fighting the fire nation, and training with earth benders. You would never be able to keep an edge on it because fire would soften the metal, and earth would grind the edge away"

It was his turn to fault "well, yes, you're right. I keep six sets near at all times. It's costly but I can beat almost any bender. The only one who could challenge me here would be the general. And I hardly ever find myself in trouble when we have to defend from the fire nation"

"Well, if you're taking precautions like that then I guess it's reasonable to use swords. That's very impressive... especially because you're a non-bender." I looked down at my plate and saw that it was empty. In a quick couple of gulps I finished off the drink and stood up, bending the stool away from the table. "Thank you for sitting with me, but general Yiban said I should come find him after eating."

"That's alright, we'll probably be seeing a lot of each other. Yiban asked me to help train you"

"... in earth bending?"

He chuckled before answering "You think everyone you're going to have to fight will be an earth bender? No, I'll teach how to fight nonbenders" After a second of my giving him a questioning look he waved me away "go, go. I'm sure the general's waiting for you."

I entered the generals shack to find him sitting cross legged in the center of the room, his fists touching in front of him. Instead of his normal armor, he wore a pare of cloth pants with no shirt. His hair was undone and hung around his face. His eyes we're closed and his breath was even and slow, so I at least waited a bit before clearing my throat.

His eyes opened and he smiled lightly at me. "Sit down, Cheng"

I complied and sat down in front him, trying to mimic his position. "What are you doing?"

"Meditating. After thinking about it, and realizing you have never gone through any sort of training before, I decided to let you rest for the remainder of the day. So sit down and meditate with me."

It was awkward for some time, to sit down facing him quietly. But after a little while I closed my eyes as well. I was content sitting like that for a long time, letting my mind wander pointlessly. After a few minutes or a couple hours, I couldn't tell, I heard a knock on the stone behind me. When I turned around I saw lee taping the stone with his arm guard.

"Message for you, general" he walked away once the the general nodded. A man walked in shortly after with a scroll for the general and left it on top of the papers on his desk. I decided to stay seated until he dismissed me.

When I looked back at the general he was still sitting silently, but after a moment he inhaled deeply and opened his eyes. "Go on. Get something to eat and then go straight to bed. Your stance has been corrected well enough, so tomorrow we're starting earth bending forms."

It was still day light... but that didn't matter much to me when I went to lie down. Having sat down meditating for so long, and being exhausted first thing in the morning, sleep came to me fairly quickly.


	5. Chapter 5

This one, I enjoyed. Hope you like it!

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I was woken up the next morning not by the generals shouts and the guards pulling my blanket off, but by a metallic tapping on the stone. After blinking away the sleep, Lee came into focus in the silhouette in the doorway.

"Wakey wakey, kid. Come to the training area. And dress the same as you did yesterday"

When I arrived at the training grounds I saw Lee conversing with a couple of non-bender soldiers. But when he noticed me he pat one of them on the shoulder and called out.

"Get over there. We're starting with a spar."

"Yes sir" I stood at attention the way the general told me I should.

Lee waved a hand at me dismissively "Hey, I'm not the general, don't do that. It's weird coming from a kid"

"Yes-Oh, ok... Lee?"

"That works. Now get over there"

I decided to take his 'get over there' as a step away a few yards. But as I was walking away I heard a long and slow shing, like a sword coming out of its sheath. When I looked back, Lee was twirling his blades around in a warmup dance. It was an amazing sight, I stood paused for a moment watching him windmill his blades, move them in sync with each other, and send a few test swing at an imaginary opponent. The blades made no sound as they cut through the air, despite their moving so quickly.

I felt myself start to sweat at the idea of fighting him, a non-bender. "Lee... is it safe?"

"Is what safe?" He look down at the blade in his hand for a moment and then back at me with a big smile on his face "oh please, I'm a master. Besides, I dulled these last night especially for today" he ran the blade across the tip of his thumb, and blood gushed out from the wound cause by the dull blade "see?"

I stared at him for a moment, unsure of whether or not he was joking.

"Shit!" He jogged away from me, in the direction of the medical building "I'll be right back! Practice your forms or something until then!" It felt nice laughing with the crowd instead of being laughed at.

He returned fairly quickly, considering how deep it looked like he cut his thumb. It was wrapped up its a gauze now, but it didn't seem to hinder his ability at all.

This time with certainty that his blades were dull, he preformed his warmup. And I watched again, just as amazed as the first time.

One last stretch of his neck, a shake of his arms and he looked at me, brandishing his swords with a terrifyingly confident look in his eye. "Ready?"

I didn't trust my voice, so I chose to nod shakily.

I opened with the same attack that the general had me do. Both heels planted in the ground, lift a pillar as tall as myself with my arms. Break it into thr- I was on the ground. I hadn't even felt the thud of his blade on the back of my legs until I was in the air, tossed up like a ragdoll.

I landed hard on the ground and he came into view above me.

"Tsk tsk. Bad job. The general may have taught you about the importance of your stance, but if that's all you focus on then you're dead. Again!" He smacked me in the thigh with his blade and stepped back into his original position. "And get that stone back in the ground! We're starting fresh!"

I tried again, except faster. Only to have same thing happen before I even pulled the stone back out of the ground.

"Again!"

Again.

"Again!"

Again.

"Why the hell would you do the wrong thing over and over again?! You must enjoy being smacked around!"

Fed up, and in a bout of frustration, I ignored what the general told me the day before, and tried to do it on my own. There was a patch of already broken ground behind me, and near there were a couple of fairly large stones I could bend into the fight.

I did the same as my previous knockouts, but this time I was ready. Lee attacked from the same place each time, right behind me. And he had just done it again. Instead of breaking the pillar into pieces this time, I readied myself to shoot the stone from the ground behind me into Lee's back. I felt the weight of the stone on my bending, and when I knew he was behind me I ducked. The large stone came flying through the air and directly for his head.

I felt a rain of pebbles bounce across my back, and two thuds on the ground near me. When I turned around I saw that the stone had been smashed in two, and that Lee was smiling wildly at me.

"Good job! You finally got it!"

I stared up at him from my protective fetal position on the ground, obviously defeated. "What?"

His smile calmed by a fraction, but it was still there. "Non-benders are at a huge disadvantage when fighting benders of any element. So we always have to think on the edge. Integrating fighting styles, tricking our opponent into making a mistake, finding some work around to their bending. And if you can't think the same way, then you're going to lose to some little trick that you didn't see coming." He motioned with his sword to get up "c'mon, I'll actually start teaching you stuff now." He suddenly turned back around as if he'd forgotten something and pointed the sword at me. "And hey! I don't wanna hear any whining about 'I'm an earth bender, why do I have to learn non-bending fighting styles?' I'm the teacher here, shut up! It makes your bending better anyway."

"Y-yes sir!" he raised an eyebrow at me "oh... I understand, Lee. No whining."

"Atta boy. Now, I'm not going to teach you swordplay. Earth benders are notoriously bad at it, and I'm not going to risk wasting my time. You will, however, be learning the fighting styles made to counteract fire bending, and earth bending. Whether you're good at them or not. I don't know the water bending counter, but my colleague here does"

A man with a single sword at his waste waved at me with a bored look from his spot in the shade of the building. "So he will be whooping your ass every now and then too." With a flourish, he sheathed both of his blades without a hint of hesitation to make sure they were positioned correctly "Any questions?" I slowly shook my head, impressed as I was. The general was very talented, he commanded his element beautifully. But there was something about Lee that screamed much louder than anything the general had. Lee was skilled,he had worked incredibly hard to earn his position and only looked so amazing wielding his weapons because of his hard work. "Good, let's get to work. Ill show you the earth counter first. Show me your starting stance!"

I entered my stance, preparing to spend hours in it when he pushed me over with a single finger on my shoulder "we've got a lot to do if that's all the general taught you yesterday. You're an earth bender, hard as rock, solid as stone. I shouldn't be able to push you over so easily!"

I gathered myself off the ground and got into the stance again. This time, with a grin, I pounded both feet into the ground and closed the earth around them.

The general would have broken the ground I was standing and sent me flying, but Lee just started laughing. "I'm going to enjoy teaching you!" He did however knock me over with a finger again.


	6. Chapter 6

Hey, I hate to be one of those authors, but please leave a review. Whether you think I should go on to write a novel or you think it's a steaming pile of shit, just tell me something so I know what I can fix. I'll thank you for it either way.

I don't think the flow of my story is the best it could be, for example. You guys agree or no?

Thanks for reading!

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The months followed in a similar manner. I would wake up at dawn, get beat up by one of the soldiers, Lee, or the general until lunch. Sometimes I would meditate with the general until night and others he would decide to have me train more while he tried to shorten the mountain of paperwork on his desk.

The general never gave me many words of approval. "Good enough" said quickly and with a hint of contempt was the closest I got to a good job from him. But Lee and couple of the other soldiers that I had gotten close too never held back in telling me how impressed they were. And by word from Lee, I knew the general was at least a little more impressed than he let on.

I had mastered the army's earth bending forms in six months. And when I had customized it well enough to integrate my quirks, the general began teaching me his family's form.

It became a little more clear as to why he was so eager to take me as a student when he told me his only son was not a bender, so he needed someone to keep his family's bending form alive. It didn't bother me much though, I was learning more than I had ever dreamed.

I was nowhere near as proficient as Lee was, but I could handle some of the less talented earth bending soldiers without using my bending at all. And I was told that I picked up the water bending counter ridiculously fast, but I had no benders to test it on.

The fire bending counter proved the most difficult for me learn. There was always something for Lee to correct when I preformed an attack. It was still rough, with none of the precision that Lee had. But I was able to hold my own against the odd fire bending soldier that entered camp when the others were out fighting back fire nation occupation on the coast.

With no handy caps though, when I could use my bending and any fighting form I liked, I was a pretty potent fighter. There were three benders in the generals platoon that could beat me, all better benders than me that knew nothing but earth bending. And the only non-bender that I had never beaten was Lee, but he did struggle sometimes.

The general himself was invincible. I hardly ever landed a blow on him. Any attack I tossed at him was either stopped head on or swatted away like a fly. It felt like no matter how good I got, I could never best him. He could beat Lee, sharpened swords and all, without his bending. He sparred two of the soldiers that could beat me as a morning exercise. How he managed to stay so skilled despite spending four hours a day doing paper work was beyond me. He became my role model, the ideal warrior, unbeatable by anything less than an army.

At least, that's what I thought of him until I beat him in a bar-nothing fight.

It was a hard and long fight that left the earth around us scarred and the spectators from the village and the the platoon in awe. It hag been nearly a month since he last checked my progress with a fight. For the first time, I noticed that Yiban was sweating and his breathing was heavy because of me. Because I posed enough of a challenge to him.

By some miracle, I had managed to get within a couple of yards of him. From my position I kicked a rock out of ground and shot it towards him. A rock that would have been easy enough to dodge, but he was unyielding. He backhanded the stone rather than move out of the way in order to keep his stance, and it exploded into a cloud of dust around his head because of it.

Before the dust cleared, or he decided to give up his stance in favor of vision, I attacked. I ran through scenarios I had experienced with the earth bending counter as I approached.

The earth bending counter was simple enough in theory. Break the opponents stance, make them weaker than their element. But the difficulty came in breaking the stance of someone so much stronger and larger than you. General Yiban would not let go of the earth easily.

Luckily I did not have to rely only on an earth bending counter, I had earth bending itself.

I sent a kick that managed to land true on the inside of the generals knee. It felt like I had kicked at a tree stump, but he grunted in pain.

When I saw his counter coming, a fist that would come towards my face only as a distraction for a chunk of earth behind it, I managed to duck under it.

With my left foot right behind his right, I sent my right knee into his gut. Along with my knee, I raised pillar beneath my foot to hit harder. He stumbled back to keep his balance, and to create distance between us.

Because he was too far away to complete an earth counter grapple, I kicked hard into the air and sent a pillar of earth into the same spot that I had just kneed. I had expected him to intercept the pillar, or break it before it reached. But it landed true, and with an "oof" he was sent flying across the clearing.

The general lay on the ground for a moment, breathing deeply, and I stood still in shock. When he finally sat up I had no idea what to do, so I dropped my stance and stood at attention.

I watched his face slowly turn from the red of exertion to the red of anger. Suddenly, as if he had been holding his breath, he burst out laughing. "You see that men?! Knocked on my ass by a seventeen year old! This is what real bending is like!" The crowd erupted into applause and laughter, and I felt myself join in with them.

The general dropped a heavy hand on my shoulder with a smile he never wore on the training field. "You've beaten your master. Good job. Now all you're missing is experience."

"Thank you, Master Yiban"

"I'm jealous, actually. You've mastered two earth bending forms, you're well versed in the counters for each of the elements. All this in just, what is it now, a year and a half, two years? It took me that long to become an expert on the armies style alone."

I smiled at the compliment "I have some incredible masters."

He nodded sagely with a grin on his face "You do, you do... That's enough for today, though. It's been a while since I took a hit that hard" he rubbed lightly at his stomach.

At the generals dismissal and after pats on the back from a few people, I walked slowly to the outskirts of the little village the army built wherever they went. Once I found a suitable spot facing away from the buildings, I swept my foot across the ground and cleared away a patch of earth, revealing flat, solid stone. A layer of the stone turned into sand when I clenched my fist and I sat cross legged and closed my eyes.

The sound of stone just crumbling and giving way to my will was incredibly satisfying, so I had trouble getting rid of the smile on my face when I was supposed to be meditating.

I learned that the general did not meditate often, but I had taken to the habit. It was relaxing, and it helped me sort out what I had learned for the day. I picked apart my mistakes and always found a way to fix them faster. I felt more connected to my element when I meditated, more so than when I was actually bending it.

I heard Lee's distinct foot steps come up behind me. I didn't move until after he sat down next to me with a heavy sigh. "You're still a boy, what do you have to meditate about?"

I sighed the same way he did and mimicked his position. "That spar with the general could have gone much better than it did. Remember near the beginning, when I broke through the seven or eight stones he tossed at me? If I had ducked under them then I could have caught him in between stances. Maybe send that pillar into his gut at the beginning of the match instead of when I did."

"No no no. He was ready for that. He was expecting you to duck under, not break through. He left that gap near the ground on purpose. You didn't catch the grin on his face when you broke through instead?"

"... hm... well I guess I still have a lot learn"

He smiled lightly at me "like he said, experience. you're learning very well. Give it another six months and you'll beat us both with your hands tied."

"It might be a little longer before that happens. Maybe when the two of you go senile."

"Hey hey! You just beat the general! Being a general is the highest military ranking you can get before you become one of the five. Don't sell yourself short. That was impressive, even if some luck might have been involved"

We sat in silence for a while longer before he spoke again "the general's considering asking you to stay after you turn eighteen."

I looked over at him for the first time. I fought in a couple of battles already. When we camped near the coast, and fire nation occupied villages, I was left to protect the kitchen and medical staff with a small group of soldiers. So I wasn't really surprised by that information.

"Even though I'm not really his son?"

"You're as good as one to him by now. Don't get me wrong, he loves his family. But he can't give this position to his own son when he's a non-bender. We aren't allowed command over earth benders."

"I think... I'll wait to respond to that until he brings it up..."

He looked at me with a frown on his face for a moment "that's reasonable... you would fit right in here though. You'd rise through the ranks pretty quickly, especially because you already have a general on your side. It won't be hard to gain favor and recomendation from the others"

I smiled and nodded, but that wasn't the issue. I didn't think of it much anymore, but the army was still the reason that my village was destroyed. Even if I had forgiven the general, it was still the fault of the army, of this war.


	7. Chapter 7

MrCcoz: I should have thought of that, cause he has an older brother in the army that we never met right? Too late now though. No connection there, sorry.

NATSUxERZA 123456: Not until after Cheng learns energy bending. I did say it might be a little while. We haven't gotten to them yet, but Aang and the rest have already started their adventure. Cheng will meet up with them after they've already gone through some stuff together. I'm only being vague because I haven't written that yet and I'm not sure what I might change.

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I never managed a victory as great and complete as my first. But I knew i had a chance to win every fight afterwards. After defeating the general, everyone in camp was beatable, not consistently, but beatable. Lee was still an expert where I was learning, and his swords proved deadly even during a friendly spar. The general could still pummel me into the ground on a good day, which he had.

Normally after a fight, the general would berate me for any mistakes I made during the fight, and harshly correct them before returning to his work. Unless he lost, then he would return immediately. I had finally won another spar after a losing streak against Lee and the general, in which I held back from pulverizing his knee when he was in the middle of an evasive roll. After he dusted himself off and congratulated me, he asked me to follow him to his stone shack.

I knew the question was coming, what I would do once I turned eighteen. My birthday was only a few days away. At that point I would have to choose between staying officially, or leaving.

The general didn't know that I was already packed, that I had been for a week.

In the near three years I had traveled with the generals platoon, the layout of his office had never changed. The bed stayed in the same place, the same water horn sat on the same wooden table. Even with his diligent work on it, the same stack of paperwork and documentation sat on his desk. At least it looked like it, cluttered as it was.

We spoke for sometime at the small table in the corner of the room. He quizzed me on battle tactics, fire bending counters, his family's earth bending forms. He even had me display a couple of the more complicated routines until he was satisfied. When dinner came in I was reminded of my first day at the generals camp.

"Cheng, I would like to make a formal request of you." The generals utensils were set down on either side of his plate, and his arms were crossed over his chest in a very general like fassion.

"Yes, general?" I mimicked his position as best I could, but I still felt like a fifteen year old boy in front of him. Even if I stood eye to eye with him.

"You probably already know, the contract is coming to an end. Soon you're going to have to choose whether you're going to join the army officialy, or leave." He sat silently, waiting for me to give an answer, but continued when I didn't give one. "I just want to remind you that you have no obligation-"

"I know where this is going, general..."

He cleared his throat lightly and swallowed before continuing, he almost seemed nervous. "Your answer?"

"...I'm sorry. It was never my intention to join the army. From the beginning. There were moment's when I considered it, when I wanted to. But I can't bring myself to join."

"I see" he nodded lightly with his brow furrowed, but not a hint of anger crossed his face. I had expected some retaliation to my answer, it was a relief that he didnt.

"I've enjoyed my time here. I've become a better and more skilled person thanks to efforts of everyone. You and Lee especially. But I can't stay once my time is up."

"... I understand... dismissed" there was no disdain in his voice, but the command was spoken as if he was giving it to a foot soldier.

I bowed at the hip "thank you, general."

I went about the rest of the day and the next day as I normally would. Sparring Lee in the morning and a couple of the other soldiers through out the day. Our spars always drew a crowd, from the village we occupied and from the soldiers in the platoon. I very nearly changed my mind when I heard the cheers at my victory against Lee.

But meditating after dinner cleared any doubts I had about my future.

I removed my pack from its hiding place under my stone shack that night.

It was easy work sneaking in between the earth made tents and buildings, avoiding fielight and walking quitley. It wasn't until I reached the last building that I ran into trouble.

When I stopped and turned around for one last look, Lee was standing against the building. I jumped, and nearly shouted when I saw him with a small grin on his face.

"Hey Lee... nice night for a walk..." there was no answer for a while.

"Yeah. Sure is... Let me join you for a bit."

We walked in silence until the camp was a good distance away. "you know why I was out at night."

"Oh, yeah I knew."

"What are you going to do?..."

"What do you mean? I'm gonna do nothing. You were never trapped here you know. You could have left whenever you wanted, and you still can."

"So you're just going to let me walk away?"

"Believe me, I don't want to. But like I said, you're not a prisoner." He walked towards me slowly and wrapped me up in a hug. "I don't like it but I can understand why you're leaving. You come back some day, arlight?" he looked me up and down for a moment "I'll tell the general you said goodbye" with that, he pushed me away and walked towards the nearest fire.

I looked back one more time before fixing my bag on my shoulders and walking away.


	8. Chapter 8

I tugged at my end of the rope again, eliciting another grunt from the cereal rapist I was dragging behind me. I would have killed him when I found him, but the person who put up the bounty wanted him alive. No reason stated.

He was a fire bender so he was a little trouble for me. I had to capture him without injuring anyone else, and that made it hard for me as an earth bender to attack, and even harder to defend in the small crowd of people I found him in. But eventually, I was able to put him in an earth prison, cuff his hands, and cover his mouth with a metal muzzle.

I couldn't help but feel proud at another success. I was doing quite well for myself. I lived in a small earthen shack on the edge of an equally small village that I didn't even know the name of, if it even had a name. I had really hoped to find honest work, but what work could there be in such a small village. Especially for someone trained in nothing but battle. So, as a person with a very specific set of skills, I found work as a bounty hunter. And I hadn't gone hungry once since I left the general.

A lot of people with bounties on their heads came to the small village to disappear, and that was when I would swoop in and claim their reward. Of course I sometimes traveled to hunt down bounties, but there was a sense of satisfaction in catching the criminals that thought they had gotten away. It was even more so when they found out at the collection office that I had a bounty myself.

My charges? Desertion of the army, and use of the army's earth bending forms for personal gain. This meant that most of my friends tried to kill me, or have me killed on a regular basis. But what kind of friends would they be if there wasn't some hint of malice in our relationship?

Knowing glances and grins were shared every time my charges were mentioned. For them it was because I was a bounty hunter with a bounty, a pretty damn high and difficult to collect bounty. I laughed because it was because either some idiot official thought I was was a member of the army, or the general was lying. I understood their motivation, of course. If you spent resources training someone in a specific form of earth bending, meant to do the most damage and be the most lethal, then desertion should be a crime. It would prevent people with dangerous abilities from being released into the public. But my case was different, I shouldn't have been charged for leaving because I technically never joined

"Be a good boy now" the rapist gave me the best scowl he could with half of his face covered and number of muffled curses as I stepped through the curtain that hung in the doorway of the bounty office.

"Cheng! Come to turn yourself in?" I grinned at the clerk sitting behind the solid stone desk. With the next step I took I bent the counter into the ground so he'd fall a bit "fug! You ath hole!" I tugged a bit harder and the man came stumbling through the curtain. He went from checking his tongue for blood to raising his eyebrows in surprise. After a double take at a sketched photo he smiled wide at me. "This guy's been missing for months! Where'd you find him?"

"I made a friend on the road who had a thing for sketchy brothels. Saw this bastard in the first one he took me to." I kicked him over to the two earthbenders who secured the bounties, and picked up the small sack of coins from the counter.

I really didn't have much to say to the clerk, he really did wish I'd turn myself in so the office could cash in a government bounty. So I left as soon as I had the money.

I was back home after passing through the market within a few minutes of walking. When I was sure that there was no one lurking around, I kicked my belongings up out of the ground. Along with a couple of pots and pans, and some spare clothing, a heavy bag of coins flew up into the air. I caught it from the bottom and dropped the bag of coins I got from clerk into it. I really had no goal, I didn't know what I was saving for. But when the time came that I needed a large sum of money, then I'd be fine.

Just after I hid my belongings again, I heard a knock at my door. At least the slab of stone that served as my door.

I bent the slab out of the way to see one of my friends. Xun, A real friend. I trusted this man more than most, even if he was a bounty hunter. It may have been because he looked a lot like Lee, even fought using the same style, although a less refined one. Or that he had yet to show any interest in my bounty. But he was still the person I had come to trust the most.

"You come to collect?"

He faked a laugh at the old and overused joke and stepped into the small stone shack. "No, the opposite actually. A... friend... told me about a bounty that was posted a couple towns over. She says she was the first to see it and took the poster down. It's a pretty big reward, a group of about four benders that camp out near a remote trail. We're both nonbenders so she was worried, but luckily I know a badass earth bender. You'll get the bigger cut of course. Only fair if you do all the work."

"This is perfect. I was just in between bounties too. Where is this friend?"

"She's actually waiting outside, figured we'd leave now and get it done in a day. They're two hours from here if we ride her shirshu."

"A shirshu? Are you sure she couldn't handle the four of them on her own. Those things are expensive. Hard to catch, hard to tame. But they're worth the trouble, four people should be no problem, benders or not.."

"I don't know, but she asked for help." He turned to the doorway and put a hand beside his mouth. "June! come on in!" He stepped aside to leave room for a person step through.

Before I could protest someone I didn't know coming into my home, a woman just a bit shorter than me walked into my shack with an almost invisible grin on. I looked her up and down quickly, and she was actually really attractive for a rough and tough bounty hunter, in an alternative kind of way.

She wore black hair in a top knot held up with a ribbon and skull pin. Her skin was pale white, something pretty rare in the working class, and the makeup she wore contrasted with it very strongly. Black eye and lip paint.

I noted her odd mode of dress when I checked her for wepons. She wore a vest, and sleeved fingerless gloves that covered her arms until just below the shoulder.

I offered a handshake with a smile that felt a little awkward. It took a while a but she accepted my hand "Cheng. Nice to meet you."

"Yeah. So you're the earthbender..."

I raised an eyebrow at a shrugging Xun. "...You saw how I opened my door, right?"

"It wasn't really that impressive. Any bender can move a big rock."

"Actually, no they can't. That comes with practice, like working a muscle" I flexed both of my arms at her.

I watched her look me up and down one more time before she turned around and I let my arms down "Let's go. It's still early so we should be able to make it back by dinner."

I stepped out of the shack, working my bending into my steps to move my belongings to another corner of the room. In case they had seen me put them away.

We turned the corner of the shack and I saw a huge animal lounging like like a cat under a tree. I had heard people talking about shirshu's and how useful they were, but this was the first time I had actually seen one. It was incredible, and very large. Any doubts I had about the three of us riding were gone when I saw it's size. Suddenly it sat up and started sniffing the air in front of it. June calmly walked up to the mouth of this giant beast and started petting it's snout. I felt my respect for her shoot up quite a bit upon seeing that.

"Come on, she needs to smell you with me so she doesn't try to kill you" it growled at both me and Xun when we got close, but June stood next to each of us individually and made different sounds.

"Giving us names?"

"Something like that..."

We were off shortly after. I had ridden ostrich horses and camelephants, even a mongoose lizard a friend stole from a fire nation colony. But none compared to this thing. I couldn't contain a laugh as we flew through a path that would have taken me a day on foot. "Where the hell do you get one of these things?!"

She looked back at me, past xun, with a grin. "You'd have a hard time finding one. I don't even know where they come from. My dad got her as a baby in exchange for a bounty. And that guy disappeared after the bounty was settled."

To my disapointment, Xun started speaking. "Hey, let's have these conversations when we're not riding. June leaning back is pushing me into Cheng's chest and that's not a place I want to be."

Everyone fell silent after that. I smiled every now and then at Xun's struggle to stay ballanced. I was at the back so I could put my arms behind me, and June held the reins and had stirrups on her feet, so Xun had to balance in the middle without risking touching June.

It didn't feel as long as two hours when we got there, but the sun looked about noon so it must have been.

"So, where are they?"

Xun spoke up after stretching his legs out. "I did some asking around first. I was told they normally camped about 20 minutes north of the only lake on this path."

I looked to the north at my left, saw the large body of water, and flung a pebble at his head. "Why the fuck didn't you tell us this earlier! It's gonna be another hour rounding the lake instead stopping on the western edge and following the shore."

June pat my shoulder "calm down boys, Nyla can swim. Let's go"

I reluctantly hopped on the beasts back again, this time I sat in the middle and Xun behind me. I was about to reach down to hold onto the saddle when June took one of my hands and put it at her hip. I looked back at Xun to see him wearing a scowl.

I had a smile on my face up until we made it to the middle of the lake. We had been riding quietly, and I was getting quite relaxed despite the fight that was about to come. I thought Xun was just fidgeting behind me to get better balanced, but just as I was about to tell him to sit still, he wrapped an arm around my forehead and pulled back, exposing my neck. "June!" His shout rung in my ear.

I heard June give Nyla a command and felt a wet thud on my neck. I was going to try and throw Xun into the water but June had both my arms clamped at her waste. Soon after, my arms and legs stopped responding, and my body slumped against June's back when Xun let go. I finally realized that she had paralyzed me.


	9. Chapter 9

Sorry for the wait compared to before. I just got distracted.

Tell me what you think! And thanks for reading!

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"Ha! We caught the bastard! Nice job, now just head over to the other side and my guys will help secure him."

June was silently repositioning me to lay across the saddle between them with surprising ease as he spoke.

As soon as I was balanced, she gave another command and suddenly Xun's words became mangled in his failing mouth, and he collapsed on top of me. This animal was impressive. "Your friend doesn't have a bounty so I think I'm just gonna drop him off here. You don't mind, do you? He did just fuck you over, and he was about to do the same to me. Isn't that right?" Xun whimpered lightly before She tossed him off the shirshu and into the water.

Once back on land she clamped metal cuffs around my wrists and ankles while I hung from the saddle.

"You're probably wondering what happened, huh?" She paused for a bit before continuing, as if she were answering to my reply. "That Xun guy has been watching you for a long time. He's a really careful person, and he knew he wouldn't be able to bring you in. So he came to me because of Nyla. Of course I was skeptical. But I accepted after he showed me your bounty. He had a few people waiting on the other side of that lake to ambush you, and then me. Why split the bounty four ways when I can take it all?" She laughed lightly "I wish I could see the look on their faces when that piece of shit washes up on shore." She glanced back at me. "What were your charges? One of them was using the army's bending form, I think. But you don't look like an army boy? Oh, sure you use their form, but you're nothing like any soldier I've run into..." she gave shrug, like I was choosing not to talk to her. "Doesn't really matter, just trying to have a conversation."

June rode back much more gently than she did on the way to the lake, which I was thankful for. The only thing I could control we're my eyes and diaphragm. Lying on my stomach as I was, a rough ride could make it hard to breath. The slow riding also allowed me to wiggle various body parts as I regained control.

Eventually I could feel the power returning to my muscles. It was guess work though, I could only test my dexterity by flexing muscles that she couldn't see.

I thought i must have been resistant to the shirshu's toxin, or maybe the beast just hadn't injected as much as it normally did. Because if June were the least bit competent, then she would know the length of effect of her greatest weapon's poison.

I wouldn't curse my fortune though. I had a chance to escape.

I waited for a few moments to take deep breaths, then rolled off the beast's saddle.

I landed roughly on the ground behind it because the beast flicked it's tail up when I rolled down it. Despite the throbbing, I laid stil, waiting for June to put me back on the saddle. I was in my element now. Even if I was cuffed, I was confident. I could feel the earth beneath me ready to obey.

I watched her pull nyla back and as soon as the animal was facing me, I kipped up onto my hands and buried them into the ground. A pillar of earth shot out of the ground and into the shirshus chin with a double kick into the air. I heard a growl cut off by the animals mouth snapping shut and a shout from june when she was thrown off the saddle. The stone around my arms crumbled with a thought and I fell back into my feet.

The shirshu was rearing back, dazed from the blow it took. And June lay on the ground at its side, trying to get her bearings, Before either could recover, I raised a pillar in front of me and shot the top segment at the animals head. She fainted when the stone shattered on her forehead.

"Nyla!" June recovered just as her shirshu collapsed. "Oh you bastard!" She took a whip from a hook on the side of the saddle and swung it at me. She was pretty skilled with it, but I had fought against whip users before. They were great for taming an animal, but terrible in a fight. I caught the whip around the chain holding my wrists together, planning to tug it out of her grip. But it grazed my cheek and the familiar loss of control spread throughout my body. She had coated her whip in the shirshu's toxin...

I was draped over the shirshus saddle again. This time my cuffs were tied by rope to either side of the saddle. We had maybe an hour until the village, and I had been discretely working on loosening the wropes. I was convinced even more that she was fairly incompetent. She was terrible at tying knots and correctly timing her strongest weapon. Her idea of securing was three grandma knots, all of which were falling apart at my tugging. Her fame probably all came about from her shirshu.

Just as I was about to make an attempt at escaping again, the shirshu stopped moving. It let out something between a growl and a whine and 'looked' back at june. With a sigh, she pet the animal before paralyzing me again with a small knick of a knife and untying my ropes. "Nyla can't make it any further because of you. So you're going to be spending the rest of the day with your arms and legs bound on the floor. Hope you're happy"

I was tossed to the side of the path, thankfully on a soft patch of earth, and June led the animal beneath a tree by hugging it's snout.

The poison felt like it lasted much longer with the third dose, and power returned to my arms much slower than before. But it returned. The problem was that June sat resting on Nyla with her whip at the ready, the beast was only asleep, and I wouldn't be able to get into stance quickly enough to bend anything significant. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, thinking of how I could get out of the situation. Meditating, essentially, minus the posture. I could feel the earth under me, still ready to respond to my will. It felt terrible having my greatest weapon so close and ready, but being unable to use it. If I could get the cuffs off then I would be able to make an escape no problem, and I knew exactly where the key was. If I could look directly at it without being suspicious, then I could bend it towards me somehow.

Maybe I could bring a stone up out of ground very quickly and snap the chains. But if that didn't work then my wrists would break and I would be in even worse of a situation. If I could even look down then I could make an attempt at picking them, but again, I was paralyzed as far as June knew. I took another deep breath to calm myself.

The chains clicked against each other when I took a deeper breath than normal, and I felt something very familiar in the metal For a very brief moment.

I focused on that something as hard as I could, and with the smallest of movements, tried to bend it to my will. I heard another clink.


	10. Chapter 10

I'm glad that you're enjoying it so far! But like I said, Cheng still has a bit to accomplish before he teaches Aang, or even meets any of them.

I might consider a POV change at some point, but then I'd have to change the summary.

On longer chapters. I'll try cause that's what I'm here for, but no promises. I have always been lacking in word length.

Also, updates are going to be farther in between. Classes have been going on and up until this point, everything was written before anything was even posted here.

Hope you like it!

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if I didn't have to stay still for the sake of remaining unnoticed I would have started laughing. I could bend metal!

I reined in my excitement. It could have been a coincidence. The chain could have just shifted, very conveniently. I closed my eyes again and focused on the traces of earth I could feel in the metal. This time when I pulled, I felt the rough metal shackle scratch at my ankle under my trousers. That was definitely me...

Still I stayed calm. I spent a good while feeling the metal around my wrists, picking out each individual fragment of earth and puzzling out how I could go about removing them. It was difficult to bend without making any big movements, but I was able to move the fragments around slowly with the odd twitch of a finger or flexed muscle when June was looking away. I found that the normally unyielding metal shifted with the fragments of the earth.

Finally, when I felt confident enough, I readied myself for a fight.

June had been petting Nyla's snout on and off since we stopped for rest, and I waited for one of those moments to act.

She brought her hand up to Nylas snout again, and the animal moved to rest it's head in her lap. Very quickly i curled curled my body, and when I straightened I was shot across to the other end of the path. Out of reach of Nylas tongue and June's whip.

I heard her shout explicatives when I jumped up to my feet and stood in my starting position. But I payed as little attention to her as the situation allowed for a moment.

With two fingers hooked under the band on my wrist, I took a deep breath and pulled. Bending apart the small traces of earth I could sense in the metal took a bit of focus. But a scrap of metal came off in my hand with a ripping sound more satisfying than crumbling earth. The rest of the cuff fell open and hung from my other wrist.

It was after I quickly did the same with the cuffs on my legs that I looked up at june, ready to fight. But she just stared at me, somewhat dumbstruck with the handle of her whip hanging from her hand. "How did you?..." The trembling words died in her throat. Nyla was still standing idly behind June sneering in my direction.

With new freedom over my bending I surrounded her muzzle in stone. She could still breath, but not bite or lick.

She flicked her whip in my direction. But I was able to bring a stone wall out in front of me this time. And when she pulled it back to strike again I flung a rock that knocked the handle out of her hand.

She dove for Nyla's saddle to find another weapon. But by the time she got to the saddle I had a boulder floating above the both of them. Ready to release.

She was breathing heavy, and on her knees next to Nyla. "I-I give up" she put her hands up and slowly made her way over the Nyla's head with hushes, whispers, and coos. Nyla clawed desperately at the muzzle despite June's affections.

I grinned huge, giddy at finally winning, but more so at finding out I could bend metal. I had to have been the first one to come up with it. But I tried not to be so quick to share, she thought I was just strong enough to rip the cuffs off, and I wanted to keep it that way.

With her surrender, I ripped the other cuffs off and dropped them on the ground in a heap. When I looked back at her she was all but cowering next to Nyla.

I grimaced at the sight. She was at bounty hunter, a woman in my line of work. "That doesn't suit you. You were this badass bounty hunter ten minutes ago. Stand up." she did so and took a few deep breaths while I examined myself. I could move almost as well as I could before the toxin, the tips of my fingers and toes tingled slightly though. Probably because of the cuffs. And I had a couple of scratches and pinholes from the whip and Nyla's tongue. Nothing very serious, unless the toxin had any side effects.

I would have started walking back to the small village, but without knowing what condition my body was in, the nearly six hour walk could be dangerous. So I sat down with my back against a tree on the opposite side of the path. "We'll head back when Nyla is done resting."

She looked at me with a frown on her face for a moment. She had somehow managed to calm down the beast, but it still bucked it's head every now and then in an attempt to shake off the stones. "She won't rest until you take off the muzzle"

"As much as I'd like to believe you, I can't. I'm not looking to get paralyzed again" as I spoke, I bent a very large rock on top of her whip. She looked over at it with a start, but brought her attention back to me when she saw what I had done.

"I'll empty out her toxin then. She's stressed right now, if you don't take it off then she'll panic even more. Then I won't be able to calm her down anymore and neither of us will have a ride back." June was lifted off the floor when Nyla bucked again.

"...ok, fine" I removed the muzzle one stone at a time, watching for any reaction from the beast.

"Thank you" she said it in a way that it was not so much a show of gratitude, more like a 'finally, you asshole'.

She didn't attack though. June softly stroked the beasts nose and it stuck the tip of its tongue out. From my place at the other side of the path, I could just see the needle like teeth sprout from the bulb at the end of the tongue when June pinched it. She caught the toxin in a small flask as it dripped. "There, she won't be able to use it for a couple of days now."

"Good. Stay on that side until she's ready to move" she sat down next to Nyla, all the while with a scowl on her face. "You're done trying to catch me?"

"Well I can't fucking do it now. You stunned and then emptied my best weapon, then locked up my next best one."

"... you know you really almost had me."

She scoffed "like you weren't hiding that fact that you could rip metal apart with your bare hands."

"Well, if I couldn't do that then yeah, you would have me." I eyed her for a moment more "how upset are you really though? I mean, I could have just killed you as soon as I got loose, or I could have taken advantage of the fact that you gave up. You'll live to hunt down some other poor bastard anther day... Could be much worse."

She was obviously still upset, but her scowl weakened quite a bit. "Yes, I'm done trying to turn you in...you're the first bounty I haven't been able to turn in. Forgive me for being a little mad."

"Oh, sorry... well not really, but I know how you feel. Not being able to catch your bounty. Not for the same reason you couldn't, but still..." I crossed my arms over my chest and furrowed my brow at her in an exaggerated show off disappointment "You know what you could have done better though?" I continued when she gave no answer "time the effect of your toxin. And I saw other weapons on the saddle, so you must know how to use them. A whip is not the best weapon against a person. And damn you, learn to tie a knot. I was almost loose before Nyla stopped to rest."

"Of course I time the effect of Nyla's toxin. You were just resistant or something. I don't know. And I had already given you enough to paralyze some body parts permanently." She didn't have much to say about anything else I pointed out. But she did seem to acknowledge it as she seemed like she was concentrating on something when she looked away. Any attempt at chastising her more was cut off by Nyla standing abruptly and galloping after some animal that neither of us could smell. She came back shortly with a bloody fox-antelope hanging from her jaws. June ushered me onto the saddle when the meal was finished.

The trip back to the village was much more comfortable. And without having to worry about balancing with a third passenger, or being folded over the saddle, I was free to let my mind wander.

Maybe not so much wander as consider my current situation. It was troubling that I was becoming well known. I already had a bounty on my head, issued by the government no less. That meant that I would either be executed upon being caught, or Yiban would recognize my name. I could imagine him saying that I could forgo execution by joining the army.

Knowing that I would be made to join the army, I made a decission. I would dissappear. So many other people with bounties had done it. And if it weren't for me they would have been successful. I would fade from most bounty hunters memory. And I could master this, as far as I knew, new form of bending.

We rode in silence for the most part. It wasn't much time, an hour and a half by my estimate. However, it was dark by the time we stopped in the clearing around my home. So we must have spent quite a while waiting for Nyla to recover.

I moved up one seat on the saddle so that I could get down using the passenger stirups. "Thank you for the ride back, for giving up on catching me, and getting rid of Xun. Don't come back after me or I'll kill you, so on and so forth. Have a nice night." She was silent for a bit, making no move to dismiss me or agree. "Hey, I was serious."

Without a word she hopped off the saddle and walked towards the the door of the shack which I had never bothered closing. "It's dark out, I'm staying for the night." She said it without hesitation, sternly and with no room for argument, and then stepped into the shack.


	11. Chapter 11

No excuse for the gap again. But hey, a month isn't that long of a wait... is it?

Let me know what you guys think!

Hope you like it.

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Living as simply as I did, my bed could normally only fit one person. So to make it a bit bigger, I raised a pillar about the same size as my bed and turned all the stone a few inches away from the surface into sand, and covered it with a sheet of cloth. Though it wasn't nearly as comfortable as an actual bed, it was as comfortable as you could get when you were making a bed out of stone.

It was on what was essentially a large bucket of sand that I was lying on, watching the chest of the woman next to me rise and fall slowly. June lay still, bitter tasting lip paint smeared away, eyes half closed, and nearly gone.

"...You're pretty good at this you know."

"Well. Good earth benders don't spend many nights alone."

"Aww, so I'm not your first time?" She tried to frown but gave up with a giggle and turned on her side to warn me. "don't expect me to be here tomorrow. I'm just resting my eyes for a bit."

I nodded with an exaggerated huff and put my arm behind my head, bending the sand into a more comfortable shape.

I wasn't really falling asleep. I thought it was kind of funny that she said what she did, since I planned on being gone before she woke up.

I waited until her breathing stayed even for a while and lightly called her name. When there was no answer I sat up slowly and hopped of the bed as quietly as I could. Again, I stood still and waited for a reaction from her when I bent the stone floor away to get to my belongings.

There wasn't much for me to pack. Money, a spare set of clothes, a water skin, some dried meat, and of course scraps of metal. So I was able to leave on very short notice.

The air was cool and, more importantly blowing my scent away from Nyla when I stepped out of the shack that I had still never bothered to bend closed. The animal stirred from her sleep and sniffed the air around her for a couple of seconds, but soon put her head back down with her paws crossed over her nose.

I held my bag still to keep its contents from rattling as I walked past Nyla and to the path leading out from the clearing I occupied.

An hour or two of quietly walking in the dark lead me to a cross roads. Two paths.

One that would lead north east, eventually, to the Capital Ba Sing Se. There I could blend in with a million others in the lower ring. But rumors of a metal bender would spread throughout the city in hours, and the earth kingdom at most within a week.

And the other path would take me to the north east coast of the continent, where the majority of the fire nation colonies resided. There I could experiment with metal bending. And given that the fire nation colonies wouldn't willingly share information with any of the royal army that happened to pass by, that was where I wanted to go.

Sure I might be put into greater danger once the fire nation found out there was someone who could render their technology useless. But I needed a place to experiment, and there was no better place to find metal as abundantly as you would earth.

I briefly considered how backwards it was that I would rather fight the fire nation than have myself caught by the royal army, but quickly brushed it aside in favor of finally resting.

I still had a few hours of darkness left, and decided I should get some sleep before setting off on a journey across the continent. With my back against a tree, and my bag in my lap, I fell asleep.

It felt like a moment later I was woken up by the sun, but more so by something wet and cold at my neck. I nearly shouted when I opened my eyes to see Nyla towering over me with her mouth at my neck, probing the skin with the digits that wriggled from her nose.

"I had to give her your scent so she wouldn't attack you next time we met... nothing you left had a strong enough smell to train her with..." I pat the beasts snout the same way I had seen June do and looked towards her with a grin.

"What happened to being able to smell a mouse a continent away?"

She stood cross armed facing me. "It's an exaggeration. I need buyers to believe shit like that so they'll hire me to track little shits like you" she called Nyla away from me with a short and high pitched whistle. The beast withdrew from me and paced around behind June until it found a resting place. When it sat down, June sat down as well with her back against its stomach. "What was last night about? I've never had a hookup stand me up at their place."

"I ah... I thought I should dissappear for a while..." she gave me a puzzled look. "I've gotten pretty well known. So I'm going to lay low for a while. Maybe grow out my hair so I don't look like my wanted poster. Come back in a little while and be anonymous again."

"... Why? You showed me yesterday that you're hard to catch. If anything it could bring in more requests for your services" the look she gave me as I said that made me feel like a child being scrutinized. Because really, my reasons were not valid in any way. Suddenly, the woman with the shirshu wrapped around her body became more intimidating. The scorn of a woman? Something like that.

I looked down at the dirt in between my legs with a brief grin. "I've got some people that I want to avoid meeting... And getting caught will take me right to them"

"...Alright, I'll start spreading word that Nyla's toxin killed you and she ate you before I could collect the head. I can go pick up one of Xun's idiots and maim him, but I won't be able to give proof. You'll still become a less popular bounty though" she was looking away from me, her fingers buried in the fur on the beasts belly.

"I hadn't thought of that... thank you. But why would you help me?"

She looked everywhere but at me as she spoke. "I don't respect a lot of people... And I like fewer, men especially. Just consider it a favor from a friend. Yeah?"

after a moment of thought I reached into the bag that was sitting on my crossed legs. In my fairly hefty bag of coins there were a number of pouches with varying amounts of money in them. I took out roughly what my bounty was and tossed it in front of her "Friends sure, but here anyway."

"What's this for?" She picked up the bag and tested the weight of it in her hand, eyes widening when she realized the ammount.

"You're doing me a favor, and losing out on a bounty for it. We all have to make a living and I figured you're not making it by letting your bounties go. So I'll pay you mine, as a thanks."

"I'm not going to argue against that. Thanks" after another moment of silence, in which I had started chewing on a piece of dried meat, she spoke agan "I've been thinking about how you got away, and it still bothers me. You would have to be impossibly strong to just rip through the metal cuffs. Even if you did strength training your entire life, that would still be impossible. How did you do it?"

A huge grin broke across my face. As we spoke, I held a metal coin hidden and hovering between my hands "I wonder how good you are at keeping a secret?"

"Very good, when I want to be. I do own the only shirshu in the earth kingdom."

"Ah, I don't give a shit anyways." I held one hand out to her and showed the coin floating inches away from my palm "I think I'm the first metal bender on the planet" she starred at me for a moment, left eye brow cocked, eyes wide in surprise. "Pretty fuckin' awesome, huh?"

"That's... how is that possible?"

"I actually have you to thank for it. Everything was quiet, the chains clinked against each other, and I felt the fragments of earth in the metal. I'm surprised no one else has found out about it yet, honestly. I must be the best earth bender the planet has ever seen if I am the first though." I brought the coin back in front of me and started preforming some exercises I made for myself when I was first learning earth bending. "This is why I'm disappearing too. I want to master this before I put myself back out there. Come back scarier than ever."

She rubbed her face with both of her hands with a long exhale. "This puts you up there... this... this makes most of the fire nations weapons useless... you should really consider joining the army. I don't side with any nation, but if you joined the royal army then you could end this war." She continued again when I made no attempt to reply. "Think about it. Every fire nation soldier wears metal armor, their ships and weaponry are made entirely of metal. The fire nations millitary would completely fucked if you could this large scale. Or train others."

I bent the coin back into my bag and stood up. Nyla sniffed the air when I started walking, but June just put her hand on the beasts belly and it put its head back down. "I already explained that to you. I haven't changed my mind. Now... not that I don't enjoy your company." I bent the broken cuffs off of Nyla's saddle and put them over my shoulder "but I need to go figure this out. Thanks for checking up on me, but please don't follow me around the kingdom, alright?"

June huffed and leaned back with a grin. I stated walking again when she waved me off. "I'll catch you next time. Only the world's greatest bounty hunter could catch the world's best earth bender."

I had to stop walking for that. "Oh, so you're the best now?"

"...Best non-bending bounty hunter"

"You're damn right."


	12. Chapter 12

Happy new year!

I did this in the third person this time. If you prefer it this way then just tell me.

Hope you like it! Feedback!

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Metal bending itself wasn't that complicated. It was still technically earth bending. Just on a smaller scale, and with a lot more individual objects to bend.

But that was where the similarities stopped.

Earth bending involved moving very substantial things. An earth bender could feel the earth beneath him and interact with it as he forced it from the ground. But metal bending involved forcing so many... particles... rather than large stones. And that was very out of Cheng's, and every earth benders, element. There was no feeling of the earth moving to his will on objects so small because they hardly required force to move. And the same way he couldn't feel the air around a stone, Cheng couldn't feel the metal around the particles of earth for hints on how to exert his will on them. So without being able to see the earth, or feel the earth, bending was difficult.

Sure it could be done. But finding the particulates in the metal took moments of poking and prodding with his will until something responded. Moments that would cost him if he tried using metal bending when hunting down bounties.

Sure he had shown off a bit in front of June, but that had taken a ton of concentration that caused him to nearly lose track of the conversation.

And so Cheng stood surrounded by individual chain links littered on the ground around him. The sabertooth moose lion charging towards him all but ignored.

When the angry mother finally got within range. The scraps of metal scattered about the clearing all came to life.

'Come on...' sweat trickled down Cheng's nose as he focused on the metal swirling around him in the air. In front of him was a chain of six links. Not nearly long enough to tangle up the angry mothers legs and have it stop charging him. "Fuck!" He rolled to the side with an exclamation and ducked behind a tree until the moose lion had passed through the clearing.

It's attention apparently directed towards the patch of grass it was chewing on. Cheng gathered his things dejectedly at another failed attempt.

"If this is how it's going to be then I might as well stick to earth bending..." Metal bending, as Cheng had dubbed it, was just too difficult. It needed too much precision and focus to be practical in a fight. Too much feeling around, searching, and testing before any successful bending could be done. Especially if he wanted to change the shape of the metal.

He gathered the rest of his belongings , but decided to leave the dismantled metal chain rather than carry the weight on his back.

A grumbling stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten since the lop-eared rabbit he caught the day before. With that thought he started the long walk to the inn he was told about by a passerby.

It came into view after not long walking. Hardly even an inn. It was a small building with smoke billowing from the chimney, surrounded by near twenty small tents.

Inside the building looked much better. Animal heads, skin pelts, weapons, and tools lined the walls. And tables filled the room, nearly every seat taken by burly men with weapons on their belts, or chubby merchants in fancy and well kept clothes that didn't belong. Yet every man laughed loudly with the one next to him.

Since all the chairs at the tables were taken, Cheng sat on a stool at the front counter where a small woman cleaned glasses and conversed with a man who he thought was in too formal a uniform for a place like this. "Please let it be known known that I am looking for someone well versed in the ways of the spirits. Senlin has already lost a number of it's citizens, this cannot continue!"

In a small lapse in their conversation he asked for food and drink and got back to listening. The man looked Cheng up and down before turning back to the woman. "Just... if you could ask around. I know you left senlin, but please...?"

"What is it you're looking for, old man?" Cheng had turned in his chair to face the man.

"I doubt you would be able to help. I've hired a number of very capable mercenaries. Be they benders or not, they were all just abducted to spirits know where."

"Just... humor me."

He sighed and gave cheng a tired look before he started speaking again. "My village. Senlin is a ways up this path and is in dire need of help. A spirit beast has been terrorizing us for weeks now. A giant, six legged, black and white monster. It has already kidnapped some of my citizens. So I have come here personally to ask the help of anyone who can communicate with it."

They sat in silence for a moment before Cheng slapped his knees. "That's some tough shit. Yep, you were right I wouldn't be of any help"

The man threw his hands up in exasperation and pushed on his eyes with the heels of his palms. "I don't know what to do! How rarely do you come across a spirit adept!"

After silently watching for the entire conversation, the bartender decided to speak up "Very rarely, father. But I will ask every person who I come in contact with. At least one person has to have some information."

Between bites, Cheng spoke up as well. "I'll keep an eye out for you. Send anyone I might find your way."

"Thank you, stranger. What is your name?..."

Cheng wiped the grease from his hand onto his shirt before sticking it out. "Cheng. And yours?"

"Lingdao, leader of senlin village. But you probably deduced that already..."

"And you, daughter of Lingdau, leader of senlin?"

"Oh don't do that. My name is Niu, bartender." She dried her hands quickly and gave one to Cheng.

"My daughter never liked being the leaders daughter, even if we were such a small village. So she came here and started this inn all on her own. Clever idea, using tents in this warm climate rather than building an entire complex."

Niu flicked a bit of water at her father with a grin on her face.

"And I couldn't be more proud of her for it!"

"So, where is senlin exactly?"

The bartender spoke up before her father could get a word in "It's about about days walk east of here. You'll go left at the only fork you come across, and then left again at the next turn you encounter. It's a fairly secluded village, so you won't see anything but trees for an while."

"Oh no. I'm not asking for directions there. I want to avoid it. People are getting abducted into the spirit world? I'll stay away from that, thank you." They both deadpaned ant Cheng for ant moment before he felt the need to continue "look, I'm sorry about what's happening to your village. But we already established that I won't be any help, right? I'll go somewhere else, and look for spirit adepts on the way. Senlin wasn't my destination to start with."

The man sighed again and rubbed his face, loosening some hairs from the bun on top of his head in the process. "What is your destination, cheng?" Cheng looked at him with a raised eyebrow for a moment. "I'm only trying to make conversation. An excuse to stay away from my village for a few moments longer"

"Makes sense. I don't really have a destination. The spirit world just isn't one I'm headed towards. I picked up a skill recently, along with a hefty bounty, so I'm travelling for a while to hide and practice."

The man seemed to recoil at the mention of a bounty, but calmed down when his daughter didn't react. She seemed to rifle through something under the counter for a moment then placed a paper in front of Cheng. "This you?"


End file.
